NEW YORK — This time, it was the consumer who had Wall Street rallying.
Better-than-expected earnings from big consumer brands Best Buy, ConAgra Foods and Dr Pepper Snapple Group sent the Dow Jones industrial average up 174 points Thursday to its highest level in six weeks. It has surged 21 percent since hitting a nearly 12-year low March 9. And the technology-dominated Nasdaq composite index is now up 0.63 percent for 2009.
Strong demand for government debt at the Treasury Department’s latest auction also lifted stocks by helping investors set aside recent nervousness about the government’s ability to fund its economic- stimulus and financial-bailout programs.
Nearly every day over the past three weeks has seemed to bring morsels of good news — first from the stricken banking sector and then in the form of stronger-than-expected economic data. But Thursday, solid reports from companies selling to the consumer came as a relief to investors anxious about first-quarter earnings, which start pouring in next month.
The advance technically put the Dow in bull-market territory; a bull market is defined as a 20 percent rise from a low point. But analysts are still hesitant to call the end of the bear market — there is a phenomenon known as a bear-market rally that can quickly collapse in an uncertain economy.
Kevin Kramer, chief operating officer at West End Financial Advisors, an asset-management company in New York, said unemployment, limited access to credit and heavy loads of debt are likely to keep curbing economic growth, and that may curtail stocks’ advance.
“Just because things aren’t getting worse doesn’t mean they’re getting better,” Kramer said. “You stopped the flow of blood out of my body, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to survive.”
The Dow jumped 174.75, or 2.3 percent, to 7,924.56, its highest close since Feb. 12. It remains down 9.7 percent for the year, however, and down 44 percent from its record close of 14,164.53 in October 2007.
Broader stock indicators also gained. The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 18.98, or 2.3 percent, to 832.86, and the Nasdaq composite rose 58.05, or 3.8 percent, to 1,587.00.
